Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1.05 Review: Broken Trust

For any that have yet to watch
tonight’s episode of Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D., titled ‘Girl in the Flower Dress’, I suggest you vacate the premises
until such time that you have done so. This is not a spoiler free blog. THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS! You’ve
been warned.

What Skye has been holding back
finally came to a head in this week’s episode, where her hacker boyfriend sold
information to the group known as Centipede. This definitely happened earlier
than I would’ve expected. I’m not sure if it’s much withheld information when
we’re given the answers three episodes later. The writers probably would’ve
been smarter to hold this to the halfway point of the season, but then I’m not
privy to their season long plan.

This is definitely a solid B series.
The writing isn’t as great as it could, the villains not as interesting as I’d
like, and the progression is a little too rapid for my taste. Plus, half the
time the characters are very superficial in their acting; they don’t feel like
fully developed people. Maybe that’s the acting, or maybe it’s the writing, but
the only one to show emotion other than anger that is too subtle to really be
able to see was Skye. She’s kind of the best thing this series has going for it
right now.

For a Joss Whedon production, I
have to say I’m disappointed with how this series is turning out. Usually his
work is so great at developing real people, real villains, real emotions, but I’m
not getting much of that here. Maybe he’s just not as able to be as hands on
with this project as he was for Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Dollhouse (I’ve tried watching Firefly, but I’ve never been able to get
into it), but he’s usually great at picking a team out to work on his projects,
so I really don’t know what’s going on here. This certainly has the superhero
kind of feel to it, but even in the Marvel films, real emotions gripped at the
characters, and we were really able to dissect who they were in a two-hour
span. We’ve had five hours (okay, minus commercials) with this series, and
haven’t gotten much. Little pieces to little mysteries solved, but almost no
big picture to really try and grasp at.

When Skye’s hacker boyfriend and
Ward both basically said the same thing, they gave each other a look, which I
suppose could be read as jealousy, but there wasn’t enough of that to really be
able to see. Fitz also complaining about not knowing all these things about
Skye to Simmins, it was like he also had a bit of a crush on Skye, but again
there was no depth to it. Whedon, really, get your act together on this
project; I have higher standards for you.

My rating: 7 out of 10.

Best Lines:

“And I like board games.” – Ward makes an offhand comment.

“Awe, crap, they gave him a name.” – Coulson mutters about
the name Scorch – which I have to say was a terrible choice, but then I suppose
the Torch is already taken.

Okay, I’m off to struggle through New Girl, which I’m very close to calling it quits on, a good few
seasons earlier than I gave The Big Bang
Theory. After that it’s Trophy Wife,
The Originals, and Supernatural, again not necessarily in
that order. Stick around.